LOST DECADE CHARTS
source: tradingeconomics.com To explore how real wage trends evolved over the 1979 to 2018 period, Figure 1 shows annualized wage growth rates over various time periods (roughly a decade each) by wage percentile and demographic group. Considering first wage growth at the 10th and 50th percentiles, Figure 1 reveals that the 10th percentile wage declined in real terms during the 1980s for all groups, and, with the exception of women , the median (50th percentile) wage declined as well. In the 1990s, 10th percentile and median wages increased for nearly all demographic groups. This was followed by a general slowdown (and some modest declines) in real wage growth in 2000- 2010, after which (i.e., 2010-2018) 10th percentile and median wages grew for all demographic groups. Annualized real wage growth at the 90th percentile was positive in all periods and for all demographic groups except black workers and Hispanic workers, for whom the 90th percentile wage declined slightly during the 19...